AkooBooks Audio

In Africa, 250 million children have no books in their homes or access to libraries and the prescribed books for their development. There is also the challenge of the busy urban working class in high traffic cities who spend hours commuting to work and are unable to read to their children. 

Africa's slow adoption of digital book distribution has prevented efficient African knowledge transfer.

The explosion of African writing talent, the advent of new mobile technologies for distribution and mobile payment and the emergence of ‘voice' as an important internet platform brings new, exciting opportunities to combat literacy.

AkooBooks Audio makes African books available anytime, accessible anywhere on a wide variety of mobile devices while doing other things like commuting, working or farming. Our business promotes audio literacy in English & local languages on mobile devices, bringing a wealth of ideas and experiences to young children who are illiterate.

Africa is a language rich continent with thousands of languages spoken, being able to speak several languages is common. One significant factor in learning to read is the language. In many African countries the language of instruction in primary school is a colonial language. Research supports the point of view that teaching in a child’s first language is effective for early literacy acquisition.

Parents and educators have long been encouraged to read aloud to children as they derive a variety of benefits from listening to good literature. Being read to is the best preparation for learning to read independently. When youngsters hear stories, they internalize the typical structures that narratives take in their society.

Students who are not fluent in English will find listening to stories easier than decoding print, their comprehension aided by verbal clues to meaning that professional narrators use. Audiobooks are beneficial to students with special needs.

1) The millions of Africans with no access to books in their homes, schools or libraries. 

2) African Teachers of early grade readers in classrooms with few or no teaching resources such as textbooks, children’s literature etc. Audiobooks can be used in the classroom or at home as a remediative device, allowing youngsters to hear the text as they follow along in the printed version.

3) Parents of young children can be encouraged to download and use audiobooks at home or when taking extended road trips. Observing the adults in the family listen to recorded books presents them with a listening model. Audiobooks have the additional advantage of distracting youngsters from disputes and making the miles seem to fly by.

4) Libraries/Classroom. African Audiobooks can be used in small group or full class situations allowing a commonality of experience for discussion purposes or they can be borrowed from libraries or classrooms for recreational literary listening.

AkooBooks Audio is a platform and experience provider focused on the transforming African books into engaging audiobooks that reach new audiences on mobile phones. We foster online discovery of new African voices and African literature for enthusiasts of all ages through our Playlists. Our library of African audio is available anytime, accessible anywhere on a wide variety of mobile devices service at flexible subscription plans and low retail cost.

Choice. We offer the widest of choice of African audiobooks. Everything from Memoirs to History to Poetry and Children’s books.

African writers Discoverability: Recommendations and Playlists for young listeners based on previous reads. Service for parents track new African audiobooks and to discover which  African writers are releasing new books. 

Disability friendly. Audiobooks remove the constraint of word recognition and decoding, and allows the young reader to focus on the story. They are suitable for children who are illiterate, blind or visually impaired.

Authenticity. Our programme promotes audio literacy and pilots it in local languages, bringing a wealth of ideas and experiences to people who are illiterate in English. We are dedicated to finding Indigenous narrators that can accurately portray African voices, characters and experiences

Smart speakers are increasingly impacting the audiobook world with growing numbers of listeners using smart speakers. AkooBooks Audio  intends to be at the forefront of utilizing voice interaction and ML technology to connect African books and authors to readers and audiobook listeners. We will  skip the translation phase of books and go directly from English audio into producing ‘straight into audio’ local language versions.

 The new interpreted local language adaptations can then be transcribed in local languages and form the basis for new local language literature for young people.
Our business promotes audio literacy in English AND  local African  languages on mobile devices, bringing a wealth of ideas and experiences to youth who are illiterate.  

The fundamental challenge of how to bring text to the millions of Africans who do not have enough access to books can be solved in a huge part by the Internet - it has accelerated the spread of information and, in many instances, democratized access to it. There is an unprecedented opportunity to use mobile phones as a gateway to African text and audiobooks. 

Our library of African audio is available anytime, accessible anywhere on a wide variety of mobile devices service at flexible subscription plans and low retail cost so that anyone can be a reader.

Choice. We offer the widest of choice of African audiobooks. Everything from Memoirs to History to Poetry and Children’s books.

African writers Discoverability: We provide custom audiobook recommendations and Playlists for listeners based on previous reads. We will also provide a service for parents to track how and what audiobooks are being heard. Also for up-to date information in finding out new African children's book writers.

Disability friendly. Audiobooks remove the constraint of word recognition and decoding, and instead allows the reader to focus on the story and ar suitable for people who are illiterate, blind or visually impaired readers.

Authenticity. Our programme promotes audio literacy and pilots it in local languages, bringing a wealth of ideas and experiences to people who are illiterate in English. We are dedicated to finding Indigenous narrators that can accurately portray African voices, characters and experiences.

We are currently serving 200 customers

Within a year we hope to reach 10,000

Within 5 years we hope to reach over 500,000

•Rapidly build a catalogue of 2,000 African audiobooks with licenses negotiated from leading African writers and publishers in Ghana and globally in all genres. (English, French and major African languages) 

•Grow AkooBooks subscriber base to 300,000 

•Rollout an audiobook distribution and payment processing platform. (Q4 2019)

•Equip 3 recording studios at partner publisher Afram Publications (Q3 2019)

•Market Pan to grow the industry & promote audiobook use. 

•Within 2 years, we aim to be the largest single employer of voice talent in West Africa

•Harness the growth of smart phone intelligent voice assistants in Africa to provide voice activated African book library and curation services in African languages.

Funding. We need funding to produce an exciting catalogue of 300 African children audiobooks 

Government regulation of e-commerce/other services: Key policy enablers that help the growth of the African mobile ecosystem are spectrum management and tax reform to improve the affordability of mobile technology for consumers in low-income segments. Our business is exposed to foreign exchange rate fluctuations.

Some of our current and potential competitors have more customers, greater resources, brand recognition (e.g. DSTV, Nollywood, Netflix), and control over inputs critical to our business. 

Our intellectual property is critical to our success, and we rely on license agreements to protect our proprietary rights.

We need a telco partner as a gateway to our consumers- mobile phone owners.

We will work with a network of partners: African publishers, participating schools, teachers, libraries and local language interpreters. 

We will seek to enter into business combinations/alliances that strengthen our competitive position e.g.mobile money platforms to offset low levels of credit card usage and increased payment risk.

Through mobile phone data profiling we will gain insights into our young peoples reading habits, proficiency and barriers to audio literacy. 

 Piracy in the digital content arena will be closely monitored and swift legal action taken.

5 Member Executive Board of Directors

1 Full time Founder & CEO 

Contractors: 15 Narrators recording the various audiobooks on 'Work for Hire' basis.  2 Sound Engineers 

My (all female) 5 member Board has over 35 years combined experience in the publishing, technology and creative industries:

Roles:

Creative Director to work with our voice talent.

Journalist/Communications oversees communications.

Experienced lawyer to provide legal advice on IP and contracts.

Experienced CEO with web technology, graphic design and knowlege management, handles our design and website.

The Board are unpaid, hands-on staff in their capacities above. 

ADVISERS

Experienced CEOs in Finance to advise on digital media investments.

Publishers to advise on African publishing.

Contractors. 15 Narrators recording the various audiobooks on 'Work for Hire' basis. They are well known talented actors and actresses from the African film and theatre industries with a passion to nurture the African audiobook industry and grow to be the largest voice talent employer

LibroFM, USA https://libro.fm/akoobooks  is our current platform/fulfilment partner as we are developing our own platform.

Existing Partnerships

AkooBooks Audio currently has 3 groups of partners:

1. Content Providers & Licensed African audio content:

• African Publishers & Writers
• African Podcasts, lectures, stories pre-recorded
• African Radio & TV shows

2. Schools

3. Potential Partnership

• Telcos
• Google AI for development of local language African Book voice assistants

• We distribute online (web and mobile) through purchasing and downloading directly onto customer cell phones and other global audiobook distribution platforms 

 • Retail sales at a fixed price of $5-10/title and a flexible Subscription service on our own Akoobooks hosted platform ($3/mo weekly, monthly or annually)

• Build strategic Distribution/Integration partnerships with leading telcos and VAS providers tied to mobile data usage & mobile money. 

• School subscriptions ocal Schools & Libraries 

• Media partnerships for digital audio advertising 

To help lure subscribers and allow fast traction, we will not simply focus on growth, but look at new business models and different ideas suitable for our African market. We are developing partnerships with local mobile carriers to stream our audiobooks to customers. We will focus on how much African consumers are willing to pay for audiobooks and create new and original audio content that extends beyond the text, leveraging (shorter)podcasts as a gateway to audiobooks.

• Partnerships with Content Creators (Publishers) to license content and promote African authors.
• Partnerships with value added service providers/mobile telecom operators to develop a  'Loyalty Listening' rewards scheme (data bundles, free airtime, meetings with writers and actors)
• Digital/Social media: Reach young African Influencers (African literary bloggers, voice talent actors, writers etc )
• Partnerships with local Schools and Libraries. We will plan school visits and create 'Listening Corners' in school libraries with a small number of headphones sets or smart speakers and access to our AkooBooks audio content.
• Partnerships with the Ministry of Education to produce audio supplements for African Literature curriculum. Explore Media partnerships for digital audio advertising possibilities